On Thursday, Brian and I decided to visit Hangzhou’s relatively new silk museum. Three of my Mexican classmates accompanied us to the other side of expansive West Lake in order to explore all things sericulture. The Chinese are rightfully proud of their 5,000 year old tradition of silk-making. The museum had impressive samples of silk (some older than the Roman Empire), informative exhibits on the lifecycle of the silkworm, plaques and maps describing the Silk Road, multiple types of looms, and an exhibit on clothing made of silk from the past few centuries. The museum is worth a visit if you find yourself in Hangzhou, and the price (free!) can’t be beat! :)
While I walked away from this engaging and thoughtful museum with a deeper appreciation for silk, what will continue to haunt me is a pair of 200 year old booties made for a woman with bound feet. I doubt my fist would fit in either of them. Seeing these tiny, delicate slippers reminded me of the older woman I saw in Yunnan province in 2004 shuffling on the sidewalk. She had undoubtedly suffered the “beautification” of foot binding when she was an infant, and walked as someone familiar with pain. I am grateful this severe practice has fallen out of practice. As some of you know, I was born with club feet (and had multiple surgeries as an infant to correct the deformities). How anyone could willfully take away someone’s ability to walk properly is beyond me. I know what a gift it is to have fully functioning feet, and those disproportionate slippers serve as another reminder of the unquantifiable value of that gift.
After our pleasant day touring new sites and reuniting with comfort food, we grabbed a taxi back to campus.* Our driver was fairly loquacious, and Brian and I are proud that we conversed with him during the entire 20 minute drive back. We learned that he is 36 years old, is from the local province, and does not like Obama. According to the driver, “Obama BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Qadaffi.”
We’ve actually had a few conversations about Obama here once people learn we are American. These conversations, however, usually entail, “American? Obama!” We simply respond with, “yes, Obama.” The “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!” took the conversation to the next level :).
On Friday, Brian and I rose really early to pursue two different agendas—Brian joined our classmates for the school-sponsored trip to Thousand Island Lake, and I traveled to Shanghai with other people from our church here for a leadership summit. This is the first time Brian and I have been separated for more than a day since arriving in China, and it provided each of us good opportunities to explore this country some more. I gained some insight about the global church (and its relations with the business community), and Brian learned about the rare art of speeling. Not sure what speeling is? Stay tuned! Expect another blog post very soon about our respective adventures! :)
* thankfully, we were able to hail a taxi fairly easily. Taxi fares rose a couple weeks ago, and with the increased price has come more cabbies on the road. Want to know what it was like to catch a taxi when we first arrived? See my post from September, “Taxis and Trollers.”